Patriot Act

PATRIOT ACT -- (Senate - December 14, 2005)

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague from Rhode Island in offering a motion to instruct the conferees to include $2.9 billion in additional funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program as part of the budget reconciliation bill.

This funding is absolutely critical to help our Nation's low-income citizens keep warm this winter. I believe we simply must provide more LIHEAP funding this year. Let me describe the situation we are facing in my home State.

Just yesterday, I was in northern Maine, in Aroostook County, which is where I come from, and the high for the day was 12 degrees. That was the high temperature for the day. In weather like this, people simply have no choice but to devote a very large part of their household budget to heating their homes. Unfortunately, with the escalating cost of home heating oil, many people simply cannot afford to do so.

In Maine, 78 percent of the households use home heating oil to heat their homes. Currently, the cost of home heating oil is approximately $2.34 per gallon. That is 38 cents above last year's already inflated prices. These high prices greatly increase the need for assistance, and at least 3,000 additional Mainers are expected to apply for LIHEAP funding this year.

So we have a situation where there are more people in need of assistance compared to last year. The prices are much higher than last year, and yet the average benefit is expected to fall by roughly 10 percent to $440 per qualifying household. Unfortunately, at today's high prices, $440 is only enough to purchase 188 gallons of oil. That is far below last year's equivalent benefit of 251 gallons. I can tell you, that is not nearly enough to get even through the first half of the winter in Maine. With rising prices and falling benefits, we have a real problem. Just to purchase the same amount of oil this year as last year, the State of Maine would need an additional $10 million in LIHEAP funds.

Just a few months ago, we passed and the President signed into law the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This law passed the Senate overwhelmingly, and it authorizes $5.1 billion for the LIHEAP program for fiscal year 2006. The chairman of the appropriations subcommittee, Senator Specter, worked very hard to find some funding to increase LIHEAP. He increased it to $2.2 billion. I commend him for his efforts and hard work, but $2.2 billion is not nearly enough.

Our Nation has been struck by three extremely powerful hurricanes. These hurricanes have been devastating to the people of Florida and the gulf coast, but we need to remember that they have had a major impact on the rest of the Nation as well. Just as the Nation should have been building oil supplies for the winter heating season, these hurricanes disrupted our already strained supplies and sent both home heating oil and gasoline prices to painfully high levels.

While high energy prices have been challenges for many Americans, they impose an especially difficult burden on our low-income families and on our elderly living on limited incomes. Low-income families already spend a greater percentage of their incomes on energy, and they have fewer options available when energy prices soar. High energy prices can even cause families to choose between keeping the heat on, putting food on the table, or paying for much-needed prescription medicine. In America today, in a country as prosperous as our country, no family should have to make such a choice. No elderly person should have to choose between buying the fuel oil they need to keep warm to avoid hypothermia and filling a much-needed prescription to stay healthy.

With winter upon us and energy prices soaring, home heating oil bills are already pounding family budgets mercilessly. For low-income families, LIHEAP funds can be the factor that prevents them from having to choose between paying their bills and putting food on the table.

I call on my colleagues to support this motion to instruct the conferees to include this vital assistance as part of the budget reconciliation bill.

I wish to recognize the efforts of my colleague from Rhode Island. We have worked very closely toward this common goal. Those of us who live in the Northeast or the Midwest or cold-weather States have a special appreciation for just how much hardship will be imposed if we do not increase this funding.

I commend the administration for calling for $1 billion in additional funding, but, frankly, that is simply not enough. We need to do more. I hope that just as many of us are responding to the needs of those victims of the hurricanes in the gulf region, that our colleagues from that area of the country and from other areas of the country will join us in averting this looming crisis.

I thank the Chair.

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